MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have called, almost unanimously, for upgrading Russia’s Strategic Forces.
In a live television broadcast, Rogozin said “we are ahead of schedule in creating the technical basis for the Strategic Nuclear Forces and we will renovate them entirely, not just by 70%” by 2020.
He stressed at the same time, that Russia will not engage in saber rattling or surprise anyone. “We should keep some things secret and make a surprise at the very critical moment,” he said.
A short while later, Sergey Lavrov told reporters that “Russia will renovate its weapon stocks, both conventional and nuclear” and emphasised that “this is not an arms race. But the time has come… to modernise our strategic capabilities and armed forces in general”.
In the middle of August, President Vladimir Putin, speaking at a meeting in Yalta with political parties’ factions in the State Duma, said that the Russian defense industry’s developments would surprise its Western partners.
“We need modern compact armed forces. We have adopted a program to this end. It sets an ambitious goal and requires an enormous amount of money - up to 20 trillion roubles - which has yet to be invested. What we are talking about is modern weapons,” he said.
Putin said something had already been done in terms of nuclear deterrence but made it clear that this was an issue to be discussed at the proper time.
{article_photo:748824:'Bulava successfully fired from submarine':'right':'50'}New strategic missile Rubezh
Much of what Vladimir Putin hinted at and what Dmitry Medvedev and Sergey Lavrov spoke about is well known to specialists. Colonel General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, former head of the Main Operational Directorate in the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and now the commander of the Central Military District, told the supreme commander-in-chief at a Kremlin reception at the end of last year that a new strategic missile called Rubezh (Frontier) was about to be adopted by the army in the very near future.
Many of its characteristics are a deep secret, but it is known that the missile will most likely have its own multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), like Yars and Bulava. Its capacity (in TNT equivalent) is yet unknown.